The past few weeks, we went through some cool iron sculptures of the villains from Transformers – the Decepticons. Now, check out this badass iron sculpture of, the leader of the righteous Autobots, Optimus Prime.

The Guangzhou Opera House by Zaha Hadid Architects has opened in Guangdong province. Shaped to resemble two pebbles on the bank of the Pearl River, the building houses a 1,800-seat theatre plus 400-seat multifunctional hall, rehearsal rooms and entrance hall.

The main auditorium is lined with moulded panels made from glass-fibre reinforced gypsum to create a folded, flowing surface.

The design evolved from the concepts of a natural landscape and the fascinating interplay between architecture and nature; engaging with the principles of erosion, geology and topography. Like pebbles in a stream smoothed by erosion, the Guangzhou Opera House sits in perfect harmony with its riverside location.

The Guangzhou Opera House has been the catalyst for the development of cultural facilities in the city including new museums, library and archive.

The 1,800-seat auditorium of the Opera House houses the very latest acoustic technology, and the smaller 400-seat multifunction hall is designed for performance art, opera and concerts in the round.

Three years ago, Belgian artist Wim Delvoye’s tattooed Louis Vuitton pigs were banned from SH Contemporary, Shanghai’s largest contemporary art fair. This time, he’s at it again, tattooing more odious designs, and on more pigs!

The 46 year old artist, who claims to be a vegetarian, has been tattooing live pigs since 1997. He now runs a pig farm in the suburb’s of Beijing’s Shunyi District, where he works with Chinese tattoo artists to ink pigs with an array of designs, from Louis Vuitton logos and Walt Disney cartoon characters to Chinese motifs.

Before each pig is tattooed, it is first made to sign a model release form, sedated, shaved and applied with Vaseline. The tattoos are then allowed to grow on the pigs for a while before they are sold to “art” collectors from all over the world.

In 2008, the skins could fetch about 10,200 USD a piece. Today, each canvas can set you back by as much as 1 million RMB (around 152,000 USD), if reports by Chinese news agencies are to be believed.

The ongoing event “Creativity for a nursing home” happening in Henan province has been transformed into a creativity competition with the theme of Panda. Recently, the Henan Museum of Art has become the holy land of creativity and imagination where countless young people and adults came to “worship”. Other than fighting to read the essay “My dad is a panda” written by a 12 year old girl, which already sold for 100,000 CNY (15,186 USD), audiences were also stunned by some other panda arts. A replica sculpture of Venus de Mio in the center of the museum became the hot spot, not because people haven’t seen a statue of Venus de Mio before, it was the special material used: giant panda poop!

Recently, an 18th century Chinese porcelain vase stunned the world by setting the highest price ever for Chinese art sold.

The vase, which was discovered when a house was cleared out was sold for £43 million ($69.3 million) at Bainbridges Auctions (£53.1m after commission which pushes the total to over $85 million). The vase was only estimated to sell for £1.2 million but fierce bidding among Chinese would-be buyers drove up the price. The vase sold to a Chinese bidder who turned up to bid on behalf of an undisclosed buyer.

There is speculation that the delicate vase with the fish motif would have spent time in the Chinese Royal Palace and was likely fired in the Imperial kilns. One of the things that makes this vase so extraordinary is that it has a reticulated double walled construction. There is an inner vase that can be viewed through the perforations of the main body. It is of the Qianlong period, circa 1740s and decorated with four cartouches each showcasing different styles of fish at play on stylized water backgrounds. It has a delicately painted yellow trumpet neck and vase set off from the central decoration by orange bands.